The Guernseyman Read online

  “That is true, sir, I must confess.”

  “May I ask then whether your father has sufficient interest to obtain your promotion at some future time?”

  “He has no interest, sir.”

  “You have described him as a merchant. In what branch of commerce is he presently engaged?”

  “He is a corn and forage chandler, sir.”

  “A corn and forage chandler … just so. That is something different from being—shall we say?—an East India merchant. You do not claim that he is in a large way of business?”

  “No, sir.”

  “To how many servants does he offer employment?”

  “An apprentice or two in the shop, sir, and one maid in the house.”

  “One maid … Now, as regards ancestry, you are well enough on either side. What you lack is present fortune or future prospects. It is my hope that you will prosper. You have the advantage of a good name. You have gained, since you came to New York, some of the manners and accomplishments which should make you welcome among people of refinement. On the other hand, your present appointment has given you no reputation in battle. You have done nothing to bring you to the favourable notice of your senior officers. I should have no reason to be proud of you as my son-in-law.”

  “I quite understand, General.”

  “These are times when we who wear the sword must be judged by our conduct in the presence of the enemy, not merely by our ability to make ourselves agreeable in the drawing-room. Your courage has still to be proved.”

  Richard had to admit the truth of this but raged inwardly against the brigadier-general’s pose as a veteran of the wars. He owed his military rank to his gesture of raising three weak battalions, each far below its proper strength. He and his men had never faced the enemy or fired a shot. Richard’s own service had been hardly more eventful but he was only eighteen years old. He now did his best to defend himself, thinking of Charlotte as the only girl he had ever loved, forgetting that she was almost the only girl he had ever met. He argued and pleaded but he knew inwardly that the general was right and that his cause was hopeless. It was a painful and humiliating interview and ended with Richard promising not to speak or write to Charlotte again. He knew that her engagement to Mr Bayard would now be hastened and that the general would take steps to ensure that he himself would be posted elsewhere. It came as no surprise, therefore, when Commodore Affleck sent for him. He was an elderly man, a fine officer and much more of a gentleman than his predecessor had been. He began by thanking Richard for his useful work, the burden of which had been increased by Mr Huggins’s removal, more especially as his successor had not yet arrived. The commodore chose his words with care:

  “Whether you know it or not, Mr Delancey, there are some folk here, good friends of ours, who want to see you stationed somewhere else. I do not propose to discuss their motives nor do I blame you for the situation to which they indirectly refer. We have all been young once. We have all made mistakes. We have all had unreasonable aspirations at one time or another and we all know what it is to burn our fingers.” The commodore looked again at a letter that lay before him and smiled slightly before going on:

  “In the ordinary way I should not allow myself to be influenced by private complaints—not without proof that some regulation had been broken—but we are not in a position to quarrel with such allies as we have. There are, moreover, two other considerations and I shall take them in order. The first concerns your future in the service. When I came here I needed you—and Mr Huggins, of course—to advise me of local conditions, problems and pitfalls. I have to thank you for your good work in this respect. But I am no longer a newcomer and feel that you are no longer essential. It also seems to me that you must gain more sea experience if you are to reach commissioned rank. You have gained some useful knowledge ashore—this I fully realise. You know something of naval administration and official correspondence. You know something of what might be called diplomacy. You would some day make a good flag lieutenant. In the meanwhile, you need a period of practical seamanship. That is one consideration but there is also another.” There followed a pause during which the commodore looked at Richard as if still trying to assess him by some other criterion.

  “You have had an active social life while in New York, Mr Delancey, and have lived rather beyond your means as a midshipman. Might I know whether you have had a generous allowance from your father?”

  “My father has been quite as generous, sir, as his means will afford. My allowance from him has been no more, however, than what is needed by a member of the gunroom mess.”

  “So I should have guessed. And you are not in debt?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So … ?”

  “I have relatives here in New York.”

  “I know. That is agreed. Well?”

  “There are times when I have been in debt.”

  “But the debts have been paid. Well?”

  “Really, sir …”

  “Well, Mr Delancey?”

  Richard was silent but the commodore continued to look at him expectantly.

  “I have had an allowance sir,” said Richard finally, “from Mr Huggins and, until he went, from Mr Greenway.”

  “Indeed? And why were they so generous?”

  “They recognised, sir, that I was doing more than my share of the work. It was I who attended Commodore Harvey ashore because—”

  “Because Mr Huggins is lame? Quite so. And you did much of the correspondence as well. But was that the sole reason for their generosity?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I never asked for anything.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you did. But how did Huggins and Greenway come to have the money? Did they take it out of their pay?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir.”

  “Well, what if they didn’t?”

  “They were paid from some other source, sir.”

  “What other source?”

  “I suppose, from the contractors.”

  “But you knew nothing of this?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Or you preferred to know nothing.”

  “I was never told, sir.”

  “But you could have guessed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  There was a long silence while the commodore considered him afresh.

  “How old are you, Mr Delancey?”

  “I am nearly nineteen, sir.”

  “With so much to learn … I must tell you, first of all, what I have decided. Then I shall give you a little advice, not as from a senior officer, but merely as from an older man. My decision is simple. You must leave this station but I shall take no further action. Nor—come to think of it—could I have done so in any case. I have no facts to lay before a court martial. I know what has been happening but have no proof of what I know. It is enough, for the moment, to have put a stop to it and that I have done. So far as you are concerned, the matter is closed. It remains to give you a piece of advice and it is this: a small dishonesty leads to a greater. In this matter of the supply contracts I do not suppose that Mr Huggins went to the various contractors and asked for the usual discount. It was they who came to him, asking how the usual payment should be made. He did not allow them to bid against each other. He did not, I think, advise our doing business with the wrong firm, accepting the higher tender or overlooking the poor quality of the supplies. That would have come later. All he did, and all Greenway did, was to follow the existing practice. You were still more innocent. You took your share but you never knew where the money came from. You were careful not to ask. You chose not to know. I understand already what your excuses are. You are young and inexperienced. You were doing more than your share of the work and meeting more of your share of the expense. You had made for yourself a certain position in society. Your clothes had to fit and your shirts had to be clean. Without something extra, you could not have done all that you were expected to do. All that is true but my acceptance of those undoubtful facts wi
ll not lead me to alter the advice I have to give: Don’t do it again. It is not enough to be ignorant of dishonest practice. It is not wise to accept money from sources unknown and for services unspecified. It is improper and foolish to accept a reward for being ignorant. You are old enough and certainly intelligent enough to know that the money offered you must have been obtained dishonestly. You should now realise what your position would be if future supplies from the same firm are overpriced and rotten. ‘What a pity,’ you might be told, ‘that we should have any disagreement after we have been such good friends. And what would be the result of certain information coming to the knowledge of your superior officers? Come, let’s avoid any unpleasantness. We’ll lower the price—a little. We’ll replace the canvas—some of it. We’ll improve your commission—doubling it. And we’ll be more careful next time—to put the rubbish under the better-quality cordage.’ I’ll sum it up for you again: a small dishonesty leads to a greater and the last in the series leads to a court martial.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said Richard, almost in tears. “And thank you, sir, for your advice. I’ll do as you say—I will, sir, honestly.”

  “Very well then. Not a word of what has happened—not a word of what I’ve said—to anyone. I have obtained a midshipman’s berth for you in the sloop Falcon, Captain Mottram. That ship is to sail shortly for the southern part of the station. Mottram has pointed out that French forces have already reached America and that French prisoners may fall into our hands. He wishes to have an officer who can speak French. He is glad to accept you and you will be rated as midshipman. I should add that he has a great reputation as a navigator and that one of his officers, I have been told, has a special interest in gunnery. You will thus be more in the way of learning your trade. It is my belief that you will do well and become a valuable officer and a credit to the service.”

  So ended Richard’s service in New York. He had three days in which to say goodbye to his friends. Of his cousins he saw only young Oliver, the only one of the family, Charlotte excepted, whom he really admired. On his last evening he dined in mess with the officers of the 17th Light Dragoons, the only regular cavalry to serve in America at this time. Some of the officers were away on duty and it was only a small group which lingered finally over the port. All knew by now that, France having declared war, the situation had changed dramatically for the worse. Much to his surprise Richard was asked to give the others the naval point of view. He did so with some hesitation, disclaiming any knowledge that a senior officer would have had.

  “All I have seen of the war has been as a midshipman on the staff of the commodore, New York, whose concern is with the supply and repair of ships, both men-of-war and transports. From this dockyard point of view I have come to realise that our chief weakness lies in our growing shortage of mast-timber. Our larger ships are masted with timber from New Brunswick and Maine. We have had no other source of supply for the best part of a century.”

  “But what happened,” asked Oliver, “before the American colonies gained their present importance? Did we use our own timber?”

  “Only for small vessels, sir. Larger mast-timber came from the Baltic and always had. For a three-decked ship there was a special way of shaping three trees to make a single mast, a very skilled business as I understand. Trees from Maine are big enough to be used singly, producing a better mast with far less trouble. So we had come, you see, to rely on America.”

  “And the American supply vanished,” asked Oliver, “when the colonies rebelled?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So we must go back to the Baltic?”

  “That trade ceased long ago and is not easy to revive, sir. As for making a mast from three separate tree trunks, the secret seems to have been lost. The carpenters who used to do it have long since died.”

  “What will be the result, then, of the shortage?”

  “Well, sir, our ships will soon be in battle against the French. Some will be dismasted, perhaps, and must return to their base. It may then prove impossible to refit them for sea. We can then suffer defeat from lack of timber.”

  “And what will the French do when dismasted?”

  “They can have new masts from their American friends for as long as they have a dockyard in which to do the work.”

  There was silence for a minute or two, broken by the mess president circulating the decanters. It was Major Tarleton who asked the question which had occurred perhaps to everyone.

  “Do the French know about this?”

  “They are bound to find out, sir, aren’t they?”

  “How?”

  “The Americans will tell them, sir.”

  “What then?”

  “Well, sir, I should guess that the French will train their gunners to fire at our masts.”

  “But a mast,” objected Woodcock, “is a slim target to aim at.”

  “Very true, sir,” replied Richard. “They will train their gun-captains to aim carefully.”

  “Do we do that ourselves?”

  “No, sir. We train them to fire rapidly at so short a range that they cannot miss. Our fire might be ineffective against an enemy who chose to engage at a greater distance.”

  “And we unable to mend the range after our masts and rigging had been damaged.” It was Oliver who muttered this last conclusion, adding a moment later:

  “It surprises me to hear all this from a midshipman, not from an admiral.”

  “Perhaps, sir, the admirals don’t always tell us all they know.” “Maybe not, young man, but do other midshipmen know as much?”

  “My recent service has been something which few youngsters undergo. For months past I have been in and out of the New York shipyards, seeing ships in dock, watching how they are masted, studying how they are repaired and listening to the ship-wrights, caulkers and riggers. These are men, sir, who know their trade. They talk about it among themselves and care nothing if a boy happens to be listening. Nothing I have told you is any proof of my cleverness. I am merely repeating what I have heard along the riverfront. It is common knowledge, sir, among the shipwrights.”

  “Have you reported this to the commodore?” asked Major Tarleton.

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “He has not asked me for my opinion and I have learnt, as a midshipman, to avoid speaking out of turn.”

  There was a silence and the party presently broke up. Oliver, however, urged Richard to drink a final glass of port. “There is a little left in the decanter—a pity to waste it.” Once they were by themselves Oliver thanked his cousin for his prediction of what might probably happen at sea.

  “I need hardly tell you,” he added, “that our armies are maintained by sea. Should the French control the coastal waters we should be starved into surrender. But there is something else you need to know, something I have myself been slow to grasp. Our present king succeeded to a throne which had been much weakened during the two previous reigns. He found that the country was ruled, for all practical purposes, by powerful lords who controlled Parliament and used it for their own ends. They had not ruled badly—indeed, they won the last war against France—but he could not see why he should be so powerless as compared with the French king. If the land was to be governed by wealthy landowners—why, he himself was the wealthiest landowner among them all. If they could appoint and influence members of Parliament, so could he. He called his men the King’s Friends and set about regaining the influence his predecessors had lost. He might have done it, too, but the American colonies chose this moment to rebel. He now had a war on his hands, a war which he might have won but which he is now almost certain to lose. You have told me what dangers threaten his fleet. You may not realise what disaster his troops may face.”

  “From American marksmen, sir, with French advisers?”

  “We have worse enemies than those. In England there are men of wealth and influence who want the king to be defeated and who are doing all they can to make that certain. More than
that, there are generals and admirals who will not serve or who will not fight whole-heartedly.”

  “But are there statesmen, sir, who are actually on the French side?”

  “There are men who wanted to defeat King George in England but were glad to shift the whole conflict to America. Once he has lost the war he has lost his chance of a real kingship. Does General Howe want to beat the other side? I don’t know. Nor do I know what is happening now. But our chances of victory in America are dwindling to nothing.”

  “And I suppose that the de Lancey estates will also dwindle to nothing, sir?”

  “I should guess so, but not in time to help you with Charlotte. She will be married, depend on it, before the year’s end. In the long run, for all that, our estates will be forfeit.”

  “Is there no chance of victory now, sir, none at all?”

  “There is one chance. Remember, please, that what I tell you must go no further. Our only chance rests on some possible treachery on the American side, balancing all the treachery there has been on ours.”

  “But is that likely, sir?”

  “It is not impossible. This is not yet a war simply between Britain and France. It is still partly a war between the British themselves. We think of the rebels as Americans but they called themselves British until about three years ago. I am American but who is to tell the difference? General Washington held a local commission before all the trouble began. Had he been given the king’s commission—and I am told that he applied for it—he would have been on our side, bound by his oath of allegiance. Well, there could be some other officer who might remember his former loyalty: especially if he felt ill-used by the rebel leaders or denied the promotion he deserved. We were all friends until quite recently and our present enemies include my relatives, my schoolfellows, my childhood neighbours. It was for many of us almost an accident which determined on what side we are on. Nor would it be very strange if a few of us were to change our minds. Some of our senior officers count on this happening and believe that it could change the whole course of the war.”